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North County native Josh Brolin honored at SLO Film Festival 

Brolin 1-Academy Award-nominated actor Josh Brolin will be honored with the annual King Vidor award for excellence in filmmaking at the 23rd annual San Luis Obispo Film Festival (SLO Film Fest) running from March 14-19.

The gala evening on March 18 will include the award ceremony, a presentation of the George Sidney Independent Filmmaking awards to the festival’s jury-selected winning films and screening of Brolin’s breakthrough movie “No Country for Old Men” followed by an after-party.

Brolin, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in “W,” has starred in such memorable films as “True Grit,” “Milk,” “Sicario,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and “Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps.” Upcoming films include “Granite Mountain,” “Soledado,” and The Legacy of Whitetail Deer Hunter.”

Brolin grew up in Templeton and maintains his second residence here. He has been on the board of the SLO Film Fest since 2008 and admits that he is quite honored with the King Vidor award. “It’s nice to be a local boy and know that San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles have gotten a lot more culture recently,” said the actor in a phone conversation from his home in Los Angeles.

Wendy Eidson, founder and director of SLO film fest, said that this year felt like the right time to honor her most famous board member. “Josh Brolin has now reached a time in his career with three decades of films under his belt and a big career ahead.”

Currently working on the film, “The Avengers,” that has him traveling between Los Angeles and Georgia, the actor will take time out to attend the gala and receive the award from fellow actor and former King Vidor Award recipient Jeff Bridges.

“It’s nice to watch the community grow and to have a couple of its boys and girls go outside that community and be successful — but still have their claws in the community,” Brolin commented. Brolin, who has traveled a great deal in his life, still identifies most strongly with Paso Robles, the place where he grew up and one that always draws him back. “I don’t want to ever let go of that community so I like to be able to represent it [at the festival] as opposed to somebody who went away, did well and never came back,” he said.

Vidor, the legendary Hollywood director/producer and a part time Paso Robles resident, died here in 1982 at the ranch he owned for decades not far from Brolin’s home. “I drive by his ranch every day” when in town,” said Brolin.

How often does he visit Paso Robles?

It depends on the work, he said: “I’ve been very lucky recently and work has been great for the last 10 years, but sometimes I take a little time off.”  The actor has done a complete redo of his mother’s ranch that he had sold in 2004 and bought it back in 2010. “It’s a wonderful oasis for us, a very special place, obviously so special that I was willing to buy it back,” he said enthusiastically. “When you’ve been there as long as I have, even though I’ve traveled around, it always taken me back.”

Josh Brolin in "No Country for Old Men"

Josh Brolin in “No Country for Old Men”

Paso Robles was a different community when Brolin arrived here as a five-year old. “It was a farming and horse community,” he recalled. Born in Santa Monica, Brolin was raised by his Texas-born mother Jane Cameron, a wildlife activist. The family moved to Paso Robles in the mid-1970s where Jane ran a wildlife way station. His dad, leading Hollywood actor James Brolin, would commute from Los Angeles where he was busy acting in films and television.

“My mother took wild animals away from people who had taken them illegally out of the wild, nurse them back to health and re-release them,” Brolin recalled. “There were a lot of wolves and coyotes and once in a while we’d have a lion or bear.”

Back then, Paso Robles was very small community and his mother loved it, reminisced the actor. She found a ranch that was about three miles from where Brolin resides currently. Brolin recalled his initial move to Paso Robles.

“I remember the drive and opening my eyes when we got into Paso and seeing Witches’ Hair hanging over the trees and a dog crossing the street in the fog that I thought was a wolf — or maybe a werewolf,” he mused about his five-year-old memories.

It was a major adjustment for the young city boy, but he soon got into the swing of country life. “Not only did I live in the country and did I live in a bucolic town, I lived seven miles outside of town,” he recalled.

Brolin soon learned to adjust, transferring from the private Buckley School in San Fernando Valley to Templeton’s elementary school. In addition to the wildlife way station, there were 65 horses on the ranch. “We had a lot of horses, we were breeding, we were racing, we were studding,” Brolin remarked. The brood included the famous stud horse Stud Spider, an Appaloosa.

Was that a great experience living the country life?

“Not quite, when you have to wake up at 5 o’clock every morning before school to feed 65 horses and break up horse meat to feed the mountain lions and chicken necks for the wolves. That’s a lot of work,” Brolin recalled. “But in hindsight it’s great.”

The Brolin family moved out of Paso Robles to Santa Barbara where Josh went to high school. By this time his mother wanted to be closer to a city. “I think she’d had it being in the middle of nowhere,” Brolin remarked.

Following school, Brolin moved around from Los Angeles and New York and then to Arizona and Colorado Springs. “I moved all over the place, it was a very full life.”

How did the return to Paso Robles happen?

“When my parents bought that ranch they also bought a little piece of property that was never developed because there weren’t a lot of water pockets or wells out,” he explained. As part of his parents’ divorce settlement Jane received the property and built a house. Upon her death, in 1995, Brolin took over that house. “I raised my kids there, sold it in 2004 and I bought it back in 2010,” said Brolin, confident of his decision.

Brolin enjoys his time in Paso Robles and finds the three-and-a-half drive from Los Angeles time quite welcoming, listening to a podcast or a book. “It’s just far enough away to keep most people away,” he quipped. “It’s not Ojai.”

“The extra bonus to Brolin getting the King Vidor Award,” Eidson commented, is that he is a local. “It’s unusual to find someone from Hollywood of his stature and also a Central Coast lover — and owns a ranch near Vidor,” she exclaimed.

For special screenings of Brolin’s films at the festival and complete film festival schedule, visit the film festival website.

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About the author: Columnist Mira Honeycutt

Honeycutt has more than 20 years of experience as a wine consultant and wine journalist. Currently, she is the California contributor to Sommelier India Wine Magazine. Her wine and food coverage has been published in the Harper’s Bazar India, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong Tatler, The Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, Los Angeles Magazine, Los Angeles Times and www.zesterdaily.com. She was a contributing wine blogger on the highly popular Los Angeles radio station KCRW’s Good Food blog. Honeycutt is also the author of “California’s Central Coast, The Ultimate Winery Guide: From Santa Barbara to Paso Robles,” as well as the curator of the soon to be published book, The Winemakers of Paso Robles.